This can't be real!

[ShyViolet]

...But it is:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movi ... l/3630929/

[Randall]

It's a Wonderful Life is one of my all-time favorites, but I have no interest in a sequel. Leave it alone, I say.

[Ben]

How lame does this sound!? Possibly more insane an idea than the Casablanca 2 that's also being developed.

[ShyViolet]

When I read about this I was just like: "OK, that's it. Hollywood is done."

(I realize there are some exceptions but they are fewer and further between all the time. And the good movies never play in the mainstream theaters! I wanted to see 12 Years a Slave so badly and of course it's not playing anywhere remotely near my area.)

[EricJ]

Actually, in answer to your question, it isn't--
Apparently, according to some reports--more recent than USA Today's--the writers/producers weren't aware the original movie WASN'T public domain anymore, and have just found out. (From Paramount's lawyers.)
http://news.yahoo.com/paramount-wonderf ... 33874.html

...Yeah, I know, hard to get used to for some folk nowadays, after all those years growing up, but there ya go.

[Dacey]

Let's have Citizen Kane II: Who Killed Kane? instead, please.

I'm not even sure if I'm joking or not. I would seriously probably watch that if it were real.

[Ben]

Well, Kane killed Kane...

[ShyViolet]

Couldn't find the remakes thread (yeah, I know! ) so thought I'd put it here: the number of remakes being released now (particularly the 80s and 90s ones) is staggering.
A Craft remake? Goosebumps? Jumangi? The last one is so unbelievably offensive considering Robin Williams passed away, not even that long ago!!

[Dacey]

I have nothing against a Jamunji remake. The original really didn't follow the book at all, so there's no harm in telling the story again. Plus, the effects in the 95 version are kinda dated today, and it's not like the first film is really "iconic Williams" (Jim Carrey could've played the role and it would've been the same movie) anyway.

Also, to be fair, Goosebumps never had a theatrical movie before, so calling it a "remake" might be a bit of a stretch.

[ShyViolet]

Good points. . I guess I just wish they'd stop resurrecting old properties. I mean the past is past already--let's move on to something different!

I forgot Jumangi was a book. It's true those effects are dated now. (Especially those monkeys!).

[EricJ]

Couldn't find the remakes thread (yeah, I know! ) so thought I'd put it here: the number of remakes being released now (particularly the 80s and 90s ones) is staggering.

I remember getting an audience-interest survey on a Scarface remake (which had nothing to do with the original except invoking the holy title), which also went on to ask me, what other action movies would I want to see remade if they were?:
The Godfather? Magnificent Seven? Pulp Fiction? Die Hard?

I hesitated to answer, as I recognized the question for what it was: An official cry for help.
US audiences are way too studio-jaded to go to see action movies any more (even the Expendables series, which just said "Famous stars and stuff blows up!" couldn't get audiences back for the latest one), and studios don't seem to know how to come up with new story concepts anymore to please Tom Cruise's agents.
Big tentpole movies have become such filmed agent-deals, that studios have forgotten how to create an original story that isn't an existing licensed project that's already written and recognizable by the audience, and, like the decline of horror movies, have found themselves asking "Why were the movies so much BETTER in the 80's and early 90's? Why did we enjoy going to the cineplexes so much more back then?"
And since they don't know how to answer that question (too bad for them), all they can do is invoke the holy charms of movies they do remember as being good, either from their younger days or their parents' days. If there hasn't been a good action movie since Robocop or Total Recall, or a good horror movie since Poltergeist, quick, remake those, maybe they'll come back again.

(This year, we had Jurassic World, and Mad Max: Fury Road--two "Rip Van Winkle" movies that took twenty years to start filming, and brought all their old 80's and 90's sensibilities back with them--and a new Star Wars episode to follow. Too bad we didn't save other old movies in cryogenic stasis, we could use more of them now.)

A Craft remake? Goosebumps? Jumangi? The last one is so unbelievably offensive considering Robin Williams passed away, not even that long ago!!

I thought Goosebumps WAS a Jumanji remake, with Jack Black in the Robin Williams role.

Seriously, Sony is....desperate for an audience-identifiable "icon" franchise, especially a money kids-franchise, to compete with Warner, Disney and Universal (not just Furious, but those darn Minions!). Hotel Transylvania 2, which they were hoping to stake the icon of Sony Animation onshould be more than enough proof of that, although, don't worry, they have another Smurfs project ready just in case.
They only have a handful of five or six recognizable "core" kids' titles on their Classic Video Catalogue, and Jumanji tops the "studio icon" list--Whenever a new Sony format is released, the same few key Genre titles are recycled over and over as "symbols" of their genres (Spiderman = Action, Fifth Element = SciFi, Resident Evil = Horror), and just as The Craft is the official Sony symbol of "GrrlPower demographic titles", Jumanji has now been appointed the official studio ambassador title of Family/Kids. If there's a family title the current studio wants to name-pimp the studio with, it sure as heck ain't gonna be Zathura.

(And Goosebumps had been floating around as a movie project in one story form or another literally since the books were still around, and the new "20th Anniversary" nostalgia/new-generation marketing was the only thing that got the movie greenlit out of the discard bin. It was more a case of "Finally, we made the darn thing!")

[Daniel]

It's a Wonderful Life just got a new 4K Steelbook. Check out an unboxing:



Beaut! Real nice artwork and cool poster. Don't even mind the placement. Love that they used the color image for the inside.

[Ben]

Got the 4K last Christmas, and steel aside it’s the same edition. If they’d actually included a black and white Blu-ray, as EVERYbody asked for, I might have been tempted to jump again for this package and the lovely poster. However, I do *not* like the inside placement...yet again they use an image that doesn’t line up! Nice outside, though, but as the spine us the only thing that will show, not enough to get me to drop on it again.

[Daniel]

It's a Wonderful Life received a 75th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray. Poor disc placement again. Recipe cards.

[Ben]

Yeah, and still no b/w Blu-ray copy. Nice packaging, but my original DVD and the 4K I got a couple of years ago will suffice. The Color version will never be run here…!